Watched last week, a mighty heart the film based on a book by Mariane Pearl, about her husband Daniel Pearl, his life in his last days and events surroundings his kidnapping and brutal killing by extremists.
PLAN B (i like this name, Brad always has plan B!) production Featuring Angelina Jolie and hot, crowded, arid landscapes. Mosques, traditional Islamic culture, extremism and the happening city of Karachi. The film has enough material to have an in and out action movie...but thankfully Michael Winterbottom did not get carried away.
Very simple in packaging (I don’t mean low budget), yet effective. No melodramas, No SWAT teams, No command centres with 200 monitors and satellite imaging, No Helicopter scenes. This is what stands out in this Winterbottom movie.
The film focuses more on human emotions, and for that matter emotion on both the sides (victim and tormentors). A mighty heart is an attempt to understand, the psychology of a human beings in unusual conditions out of their comfort zones
It is Up to the mark script work for a very thin story line. Though I’ve found sometimes the commercial Hollywood touches in this doco type film( the FBI entry and then you don’t see the agent anywhere later on). Since film has very well known beginning and end, the film maker has to rely on his skills to portray the story in a different way so the audience doesn't get bored at any point. In this balancing act though film looks bit tiring and lengthy at times.
According to me the WOW factor of film is cinematography (Marcel Zyskind) and very tight editing (Peter Christelis). Guys Hand held is the in thing. Esp. when you have a very little to say in terms of dialogues and not much happens on the screen (what is different than the main story line). Camera is a character in this film, and Marcel has done excellent collage work. Watch all those scenes where camera strays from the main story and zooms in on that little baby who is playing with some toys, totally unaware of what going on? Even the way they shown those dusty crowded roads and ornamental buses and oh god its mind blowing for somebody like who has born and lived in subcontinent. Production design is sleek and very balanced esp. when you have Glamorous Jolie in the film.
Angelina Jolie good but not up to the mark. She has tried her best not to look glamorous and French accent etc. It was a good attempt for her to be taken as serious cinema actress. Dan Futterman has lived character of Daniel Pearl very convincingly, the glasses, the innocent look and the firmness of saying “I’m Jew”, yeah he is an actor to be watched. Irfan (my personal favourite from Bollywood) is once again at his best. Archie is cute and very expressive, she has very well understood her character and the result is good performance. Rest are ok
I always ask myself what makes a good film or bad film. Actors? Story? Direction? Or sometimes nothing....well this one is somewhere in between. It’s good in terms of new form of storytelling. Camera work very controlled performances. But the film fails to gain momentum and gets slower and slower (loose and lengthy).
When you watch a mighty Heart, remember to watch out for camera work in particular those hand held scenes, the simplicity of film and the powerful performances. And off course the hot, arid and yet full of emotions landscapes of subcontinent.....
A worth to watch film for film enthusiast and serious cinema lovers!!!
PERIOD
